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Security help please

Hey, I've been reading a lot of the tutorals here, but I'm still having a little trouble figuing out how I can secure my computer easily, so if anyone sees this and has something useful to say it would be appreciated. Thanks!

Wrong question................you are not searching properly...........

You do not secure your computer, you secure your operating system, browser and applications.

There are plenty of tutorials on that

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

1. UPDATE, UPDATE and UPDATE you windows and all other software Esp. Anti-virus and Spyware remover.

2. Install a firewall configure it properly, dont accept the default configuration and if you do accept go over it once and check it. Moniter the log's of your firewall and never ever turn of your firewall.

3. Install an anti-virus and always update it. Run a full system scan every 2 days (If you are paranoid likfe me run it once everyday just before shutdown for the day)

4. Install a spyware remover update it and run a scan. IF YOU FIND A SPYWARE AND AGAIN FIND IT AFTER A SCAN RUN YOUR ANTISPYWARE SOFTWARE IN SAFE MODE AND THEN YOUR ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE.

5. Download Hijackthis and then copy the log your self to www.hijackthis.de and analyse your log.

6. Get Firefox or any other browser except IE. if you love IE and only want to use it then go to Tool&gt;Internet Option&gt;security and in internet click custom level and then scrol down to DOWNLOAD file's and enable it.
6-B Go to privacy go to advanced click override automatic cookie handling block first and third party cookie just accept session cookie

6-C Go to Autocomplete and disable all also clear any previously rememberd forms or password's

15. Backup your computer (have a nice strategy. one of the most followed is Normal-diffrential) meaning backup everythin on your computer weekly and for all the days in that week use a diffrential backup.

16. Dont visit warez site and dont use a P2P software.

Optionally

17. Start > Run > telnet then type "unset ntlm"

18. Subscribe to a news group like secunia.

19. All of the following suggestion are advance settings and use at your own risk. what i mean to say is use them only if you know what you are doing.

\"The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards - and even then I have my doubts\".....SpafEverytime I learn a new thing, I discover how ignorant I am.- ... Black Cluster

I am sorry i am posting again instead of updating the last one but I have a nice document if you want...

Its from microsoft and it will help you a lot but only thing is its windows Xp with sp 2 specific. It will help other users if you mention your OS in your post.

GO to microsoft.com and search for Microsoft Baseline Analyze download it and test your security setting's I am sorry i couldnt get the link for you my interntet connetion seems to like a snail right now, but ill update the post ASAP. Thanks

PreView is the first security application that lets you see the relative security of your Windows computer against known threats in the wild. By looking at four critical elements in a layered security approach, we are able to generate a Security Score. This score is based on the core system security configurations, installed commercial security software, installed security patches, and how effective your firewall protection is configured.

Get rid of the guest account, setup a limited user account and name that one "Administrator", have the administrative account renamed to guest. Setup passwords for them both.

This is really no better.
The guest account comes disabled.
Not much of a reason in the subject's environment to rename the "administrator" account, much less actually adding an account to call it that.

Keep it simple, if you want to rename your admin account, that is fine... it really doesn't help the situation any, it most likely won't hurt anything, though it is just one more thing to remember.

Most of the advice in this thread is just too much, leaving the user unlikely to do any of it (much less any of it correctly) on top of the fact that you don't even know what OS the user is running. All this advice will work great on say... Windows Me or OSX or Mandrake (remember Linux has been targeting the beginer crowd for a while now and more OEM systems ship with it.)